Retaliation should be removed.

[steki.1478]

@Luranni.9470 said:Translation: My ranged aoe spam isn't quite as mindless as I need it to be. Pls fix. :D :D

How is it mindless if you get punished for hitting more people?

[XenesisII.1540]

@Ashen.2907 said:Hmm, I expect that attacking a zerg should get you killed.

I expect if you attack a zerg they turn around and attack you back with at least a push of 1, not by some auto proccing shared boon.

Not that retal is even as potent as it once was and only a few things will get you dropping in health like a rock. But players always calling for increased aoe targets to break up zergs, maybe they need take out retal and let the aoes fly, oh wait then we have people complaining about too many red circles around now, maybe we reduce the radius of aoes then, but people will complain about players stepping out of aoes too fast, ok so maybe, we just put everything back to the way it was, and then go back to auto damage....

[alain.1659]

Retal is the reason why people dont use staff eles that much nowadays. Passive ability of this boon and its relatively easier nature to share makes it boring actually. There arent that much insta aoe corrupts in the game yet you can puke boons easily with correct builds. If you like firebrand and scourge meta, retal might not bother you that much.

Personally I think the boon spam is put of control and should be fixed. Or aoe boon corrupt skills should be more powerful.

[coro.3176]

[Luranni.9470]

@Baldrick.8967 said:

@Luranni.9470 said:Translation: My ranged aoe spam isn't quite as mindless as I need it to be. Pls fix. :D :D

Translation: my no brain retal is completely mindless please don't nerf or make it sensible like having an internal cooldown...

No no, I'm fine with thief retal being nerfed.

[Sylosis.7125]

Hard to balance retaliation tbh, you dont want to punish people for using a skill on a group stacked, but you dont want to nerf it so its completley useless in small scale. Internal cooldown hmmm idk. I mean you can kill yourself using meteor, dragon banner 5, burn Guard plus other skills that pulse dmg from retal. But maybe you should be punished as you do huge dmg, so maybe try using a different build, traits, utilites. Or just dont use it without coordinated boon rip forehead. Really i dont see it being an issue imo.

[XenesisII.1540]

Your thoughts bounced all over the place but really just attack a boon sharing zerg with a boon sharing zerg I guess.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

how about introducing retaliation in the form as a skill for certain classes? like an active defense like blocking or evading? Maybe then it would be easier to balance and make more impactful?

just an idea #neverforgetgrenadebarrageonablob

[DeadlySynz.3471]

Doesn't just affect the Ele and Rev (actually doesn't affect the Rev too badly), but it also affects the Dragonhunter too. You lay your traps, and walk away to 2000-3000 range or however far you're allowed to go away, if a group with retaliation runs over the traps, it basically kills you instantly. I'm sure this is why we rarely see any Ele's or Dragonhunters in WvW anymore. 1 Boon basically eradicates 2 classes.

I keep bringing this up, because they are the problem class, the class that dishes out a lot of this retaliation.. the Guardian (over and above everything else they do).

The easiest way to eliminate this is for retaliation to only function in a small AoE around the person with the boon. Say 150-200 AoE. Beyond that, retaliation should have 0 effect. Basically allow it to function likely the way it was originally meant to function, against melee attackers. They already have wall of reflects which basically eliminates all ranged classes (yes their wall of reflect has a longer uptime and a shorter cooldown than any of the unblockable skills.) 1 Wall of reflect eliminates an entire ranged zerg. It's funny how 1 classes with access to these 2 boons (quite easily), can completely alienate Rangers, Deadeyes, pistol wielders, Ele's Dragonhunters, and in some cases Rev's.

So why exactly is this classes allowed to do it (and continually allowed to do it untouched)?

[Justine.6351]

I play hammer Rev and retaliation doesn't bother me. Although now that you mention it, they did gut staff ele multiple times this past year and they are looking to nerf hammer, again...

What goes around comes around boys.

[Syrus.2174]

@Sviel.7493 said:Retal melts me too and it's nigh impossible to see when it pops up.

But Torment/Confusion are just as bad and clearly aren't going anywhere, so I don't have much hope. When the proper response to a situation is to sit still and use 0 skills (unless you have clears up)...well, retal seems almost nice by comparison.

I don't see Torment and Confusion as comparably bad because those are things you will have on yourself. They aren't constant, both can be removed if you got cleanses for example, boon removal is much more rare and limited. Torment also affects classes more equally. Confusion is rather rare compared to retaliation and it doesn't stack up when you hit several times. Of course it is also more hurtful when you cast many skills in quick succession, but much less so than retaliation - and as I said, it is avoidable.Both also require the enemy to do something so you get those conditions on you!

@Sovereign.1093 said:so you want 1 vs many and 1 wins? how about the herd of dolyaks?

It's not about 1 vs many = win, it's about dying without the enemy having to actually fight back.

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@"Offair.2563" said:Retaliation was fun on release. One barrage would get you killed.

Was fun o release cause players had to have attention and Have some team work and wait for corrupts before they could damage targets, but gw2 low skill plebs just want instanht reward... not much to expect from a game that carries with gimmicks.

Spam boons vs spam corrupts... there’s the nowadays balance.... spam.

Retaliation definitely fits to your "insteant reward" and "carries with gimmicks". How much skill is involved in just keeping that boon up, I wonder? The skill would be to, as a zerg, keep your area clear and not getting bombed by people on the wall. If you don't need to even attack those people and they die to attacking you due to nothing but a boon, there is no skill involved. And that's kind of sad, I agree.So much stability, so many boons, so much AE. As you say, it's all spam.

-

Thank you @coro.3176 for the video. That pretty much shows how bad it can get, and it's not an Ele. Just, wow.

-

Due to the balance problems with retaliation I suggested its complete removal. I just don't see how it could be reworked as a boon, either it hits too hard, or it becomes useless. Of course it'd be sad to see funny retaliation roaming builds gone, but I'd rather have that, than the problems many classes run into when attacking a zerg is pure suicide without the zerg even having to actually fight back.

-

@XenesisII.1540 said:Your thoughts bounced all over the place but really just attack a boon sharing zerg with a boon sharing zerg I guess.

Mine? Sorry about that, it's become a problem lately for me.Need to stop doing several things at once and stop getting distracted and all that, easier said than done though.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

just remove the boon from some skills and limit its duration on others.

[Sovereign.1093]

@Syrus.2174 said:

@Sviel.7493 said:Retal melts me too and it's nigh impossible to see when it pops up.

But Torment/Confusion are just as bad and clearly aren't going anywhere, so I don't have much hope. When the proper response to a situation is to sit still and use 0 skills (unless you have clears up)...well, retal seems almost nice by comparison.

I don't see Torment and Confusion as comparably bad because those are things you will have

on yourself

. They aren't constant, both can be removed if you got cleanses for example, boon removal is much more rare and limited. Torment also affects classes more equally. Confusion is rather rare compared to retaliation and it doesn't stack up when you hit several times. Of course it is also more hurtful when you cast many skills in quick succession, but much less so than retaliation - and as I said, it is avoidable.Both also require the enemy to do something so you get those conditions on you!

@Sovereign.1093 said:so you want 1 vs many and 1 wins? how about the herd of dolyaks?

It's not about 1 vs many = win, it's about dying without the enemy having to actually fight back.

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@"Offair.2563" said:Retaliation was fun on release. One barrage would get you killed.

Was fun o release cause players had to have attention and Have some team work and wait for corrupts before they could damage targets, but gw2 low skill plebs just want instanht reward... not much to expect from a game that carries with gimmicks.

Spam boons vs spam corrupts... there’s the nowadays balance.... spam.

Retaliation definitely fits to your "insteant reward" and "carries with gimmicks". How much skill is involved in just keeping that boon up, I wonder? The skill would be to, as a zerg, keep your area clear and not getting bombed by people on the wall. If you don't need to even attack those people and they die to attacking you due to nothing but a boon, there is no skill involved. And that's kind of sad, I agree.So much stability, so many boons, so much AE. As you say, it's all spam.

-

Thank you @coro.3176 for the video. That pretty much shows how bad it can get, and it's not an Ele. Just, wow.

-

Due to the balance problems with retaliation I suggested its complete removal. I just don't see how it could be reworked as a boon, either it hits too hard, or it becomes useless. Of course it'd be sad to see funny retaliation roaming builds gone, but I'd rather have that, than the problems many classes run into when attacking a zerg is pure suicide without the zerg even having to actually fight back.

-

@XenesisII.1540 said:Your thoughts bounced all over the place but really just attack a boon sharing zerg with a boon sharing zerg I guess.

Mine? Sorry about that, it's become a problem lately for me.Need to stop doing several things at once and stop getting distracted and all that, easier said than done though.

o.o;; mmm no

[DeadlySynz.3471]

@"coro.3176" said:

That's actually find of funny. But what's even more funny is there are actually people who think this is ok... and their answer to this is "you shouldn't be allowed to spam attack freely".... lmao

[cobbah.3102]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:

@"coro.3176" said:

That's actually find of funny. But what's even more funny is there are actually people who think this is ok... and their answer to this is "you shouldn't be allowed to spam attack freely".... lmao

Damn near wet myself watching that so cool , loved it should be more of it

[Syrus.2174]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:

@"coro.3176" said:

That's actually find of funny. But what's even more funny is there are actually people who think this is ok... and their answer to this is "you shouldn't be allowed to spam attack freely".... lmao

A lot of people think something is fine as long as they are not on the receiving end of it.

I was trying to get some stats on damage received from bombing a zerg (via arcdps), sadly I haven't had any "bombable" zergs to fight during the last days I played.Quite often I did see retaliation at the top for damage received though. Of course, the flaw with just looking at this statistic this way is, that often when retaliation is not on top, it usually means I'm dead.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

@Justine.6351 said:I play hammer Rev and retaliation doesn't bother me. Although now that you mention it, they did gut staff ele multiple times this past year and they are looking to nerf hammer, again...

What goes around comes around boys.

I think the staff meteor had a bug. Was outputting ridiculous numbers. Though i don't play ele, i enjoyed it while it lasted.

[Syrus.2174]

I just think a zerg should actually have to fight back to kill someone, instead of people inavoidably taking damage and dying through their own attacks because of a single boon on their target(s). There's no way for me to remove that boon from the enemy, the only option for not dying would be to not attack.Even keeping healing on cooldown was not keeping me alive, I went down three or four times there, getting killed the last time.

So what am I supposed to do in such situation? Sit back and watch the enemy zerg take the objective without fighting back? It's already bad enough to fight a well organized zerg, but this way there is nothing some classes can do against them. Playing carefully is one thing, but it's not possible when you take damage from simply attacking at all.

[Blackarps.1974]

@"coro.3176" said:

Burn guard is the same way. With the new spirit version, you can drop 5+ people before they know what's hitting them. When you start getting into the 15k+ DPS, retal is good to keep these kinds of builds from becoming too meta.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:Playing staff ele with Berserker gear + scholar runes = accept consequences.i don't see this complaint from heal tempest or those freaking boon evade sword weavers that just don't die easily.

well, I mostly play staff weaver and retal isn't a problem for me (in fact, I have almost always retal on me so I can't complain).

It can be annoying for sure. But if it is annoying then it is your own scourges fault for not boon stripping enough.

[Strider Pj.2193]

@"Syrus.2174" said:

I just think a zerg should actually have to fight back to kill someone, instead of people inavoidably taking damage and dying through their own attacks because of a single boon on their target(s). There's no way for me to remove that boon from the enemy, the only option for not dying would be to not attack.Even keeping healing on cooldown was not keeping me alive, I went down three or four times there, getting killed the last time.

So what am I supposed to do in such situation? Sit back and watch the enemy zerg take the objective without fighting back? It's already bad enough to fight a well organized zerg, but this way there is nothing some classes can do against them. Playing carefully is one thing, but it's not possible when you take damage from simply attacking at all.

It’s a passive. Just like the passive evades and passive blocks that are out there. This has no more reason to be tossed than they do.

You can say that the difference is it deals damage, but I would say the other is worse. In most scenarios, if you are dropping to retal, more than likely the others are dropping as well.

You clipped out how much retal: I wonder how Much damage you did to get that much?

The opening video shows the player getting downed by retal: but then rallies...,,, which means he did so much damage to likely down several, and they were finished by others.

[Emberheart.8426]

@Blackarps.1974 said:

@"coro.3176" said:

Burn guard is the same way. With the new spirit version, you can drop 5+ people before they know what's hitting them. When you start getting into the 15k+ DPS, retal is good to keep these kinds of builds from becoming too meta.

Retal is a terrible way to do this for several reasons. First of all it is provided by the quintessential class that has been "too meta" since WvW released. Guardian, and more specifically support firebrand in the current state of the game. Retaliation only works for keeping classes that rely on pulsing damage down. Classes like revenant do not care at all because of the small amount of hits, and they have the exact same role as the classes that you do not want to be "too meta".

Retal is also completely non-interactive. You set a pulsing AoE on foes that have no retal, then they suddenly get retal, and you die while being unable to do anything about it. At least with reflects you can stop attacking or even dodge the reflected projectiles, but there is no way to get rid of your pulsing AoE, you just have to take the retaliation damage. Even worse, retal does not care about how much damage you do. Having a pulsing AoE that tickles the enemy zerg will still make you take the same amount of retaliation damage.

Retaliation is one of the 4 main reasons why the WvW meta is completely stale, and this will never change without big rebalancing. The 4 big reasons are retaliation, reflects, stability and sand savant. Notice how 3 out of the 4 reasons are all based on guardian. This profession has completely shaped the WvW meta nearly on its own. Retaliation basically makes it much harder to play squishier builds with pulsing AoE, coming so far as to affect even DH performance. Reflects are up way too often because of firebrand, and they make zerg play impossible for projectile based ranged builds. These 2 make it so that revenant is the ideal ranged nuker because of the small number of hits and no projectiles. Scourge manages to survive because it is the only class that can effectively get rid of retaliation and reflects do nothing to it. Ele suffers a lot from retaliation and to a much lesser extent from reflect with its autos. Ranger is completely unplayable because of constant reflects. Dragonhunter has issues with both reflects and retaliation, and the list can go on.

Then stability is a problem because zerg play is impossible without it. Since firebrands have a monopoly on stability, that makes them even more influential on the meta and the only real support option, driving all the other supports out. Sand savant is the only thing outside of guardian that has a huge effect on WvW, and takes lots of builds out of the meta. Sand savant makes melee very hard to impossible, because the zerg is constantly covered with pbAoEs that follow it no matter where it goes. So, as you can see firebrand is way too overpowered and it is the biggest reason why the meta is so stale. It's even more influential than scourge, by taking out most other support builds, all ranged projectile builds, and most pulsing AoE builds.

[Aeolus.3615]

Retaliation needs to be revised as a new mechanic not another boon for low effort stacking.

[Syrus.2174]

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@"Syrus.2174" said:

I just think a zerg should actually have to fight back to kill someone, instead of people inavoidably taking damage and dying through their own attacks because of a single boon on their target(s). There's no way for me to remove that boon from the enemy, the only option for not dying would be to not attack.Even keeping healing on cooldown was not keeping me alive, I went down three or four times there, getting killed the last time.

So what am I supposed to do in such situation? Sit back and watch the enemy zerg take the objective without fighting back? It's already bad enough to fight a well organized zerg, but this way there is nothing some classes can do against them. Playing carefully is one thing, but it's not possible when you take damage from simply attacking at all.

It’s a passive. Just like the passive evades and passive blocks that are out there. This has no more reason to be tossed than they do.

You can say that the difference is it deals damage, but I would say the other is worse. In most scenarios, if you are dropping to retal, more than likely the others are dropping as well.

You clipped out how much retal: I wonder how Much damage you did to get that much?

The opening video shows the player getting downed by retal: but then rallies...,,, which means he did so much damage to likely down several, and they were finished by others.

Not a single person died from what I did - they had too many healers - or at least I did not get revived from any kills, if there were any. The damage I did is in the picture, 1.35 mio at 4.4k dps. A lot, of course. But that's what I mean, why should I get punished for doing what my class is meant to do - staying out of the line of fire and playing "safe"?

-

Also the thing I already pointed out in earlier posts is also how it hits those harder, who hit by many smaller attacks or damage ticks. Lava Font was recently nerfed in such a way that it does less damage but has "more uptime", so to speak - another downside for Ele is regards to retaliation for example. Of course the main damage an Ele can lay down is from Meteor Shower, but here again, the amount of damage just comes from the large amount of targets this hits. And every damage tick gives around 285 retaliation damage. So a single meteor hit does ~855 damage. With 24 meteor coming down in a Meteor Shower, I could potentially take 24 3 285 = 20'520 retaliation damage. I run with around 18k health, using Marauder. Doesn't look good for the Ele, if you ask me. That doesn't even take into account any other AE fields put down, you do want to maximize the damage you put on the enemy zerg - a bomb is a bomb, it requires you to throw out all you got.

I don't agree with it being similar to evades or blocks. Both need to be timed and aren't really "passive", they have to be activated by the enemy, don't just stick around as a boon that can be kept up constantly. They are also damage mitigation, saving ("rewarding") the user instead of punishing the attacker. As the attacker you can stop your attacks, or if you had AEs down, you will not be bothered by it. With retaliation, an enemy zerg could kill you by just popping up retaliation and sitting in your AE - nothing you can do about it, since you can't cancel it. There is no counter against it.

(And no, I'm not asking for a single player to be able to kill a zerg, I was not alone in that fight and the sustain they had is a whole different story. The problem this thread is focussed on is the damage taken without enemy interaction: retaliation. My main experience on this issue comes from playing Ele and Rev, mainly the former lately, so my posts will usually be from that viewpoint. Mostly from the way I noticed how as Rev I never ever cared about reliation, while as Ele it is the bane of my existence.)

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Syrus.2174 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Syrus.2174 said:

I just think a zerg should actually have to fight back to kill someone, instead of people inavoidably taking damage and dying through their own attacks because of a single boon on their target(s). There's no way for me to remove that boon from the enemy, the only option for not dying would be to not attack.Even keeping healing on cooldown was not keeping me alive, I went down three or four times there, getting killed the last time.

So what am I supposed to do in such situation? Sit back and watch the enemy zerg take the objective without fighting back? It's already bad enough to fight a well organized zerg, but this way there is nothing some classes can do against them. Playing carefully is one thing, but it's not possible when you take damage from simply attacking at all.

It’s a passive. Just like the passive evades and passive blocks that are out there. This has no more reason to be tossed than they do.

You can say that the difference is it deals damage, but I would say the other is worse. In most scenarios, if you are dropping to retal, more than likely the others are dropping as well.

You clipped out how much retal: I wonder how Much damage you did to get that much?

The opening video shows the player getting downed by retal: but then rallies...,,, which means he did so much damage to likely down several, and they were finished by others.

Not a single person died from what I did - they had too many healers - or at least I did not get revived from any kills, if there were any. The damage I did is in the picture, 1.35 mio at 4.4k dps. A lot, of course. But that's what I mean, why should I get punished for doing what my class is meant to do - staying out of the line of fire and playing "safe"?

Also the thing I already pointed out in earlier posts is also how it hits those harder, who hit by many smaller attacks or damage ticks. Lava Font was recently nerfed in such a way that it does less damage but has "more uptime", so to speak - another downside for Ele is regards to retaliation for example. Of course the main damage an Ele can lay down is from Meteor Shower, but here again, the amount of damage just comes from the large amount of targets this hits. And every damage tick gives around 285 retaliation damage. So a single meteor hit does ~855 damage. With 24 meteor coming down in a Meteor Shower, I could potentially take 24

3

285 = 20'520 retaliation damage. I run with around 18k health, using Marauder. Doesn't look good for the Ele, if you ask me. That doesn't even take into account any other AE fields put down, you do want to maximize the damage you put on the enemy zerg - a bomb is a bomb, it requires you to throw out all you got.

I don't agree with it being similar to evades or blocks. Both need to be timed and aren't really "passive", they have to be activated by the enemy, don't just stick around as a boon that can be kept up constantly. They are also damage mitigation, saving ("rewarding") the user instead of punishing the attacker. As the attacker you can stop your attacks, or if you had AEs down, you will not be bothered by it. With retaliation, an enemy zerg could kill you by just popping up retaliation and sitting in your AE - nothing you can do about it, since you can't cancel it. There is no counter against it.

I mentioned passives. Not evades or blocks. Passives, to me, are trait items that proc when certain conditions are met.

And btw: I view retal as a problem. I am not a fan of it either. But few classes are affected by it. If we are going to remove it, I think the other passives need to go as well.